Theme of the month

I don't know if you ladies have ever felt like your semesters have had themes or not (I also don't know how acceptable it is to split your life into semesters once you're out of college but that's consideration for another post. Hahaha), but I feel like a current theme in my life has been friendship. It's been on my mind sooooo much lately, so I figured it made sense to devote a post to it. Hopefully it won't be tooo similar to things I've said in the past, because I realize that this isn't the first time I've written about my thoughts on friendship.

Now on to the new reflections :)

I think I mentioned in my last post that one of the best parts about the conference I went to was the conversations I had with friends. Well, another highlight was a talk I went to about friendship. One of the things the speaker said that really stuck out to me was that we'll likely only have one or two really good, virtuous friends in our lives--friends who will encourage us to grow in holiness, help us become saints, and offer us fraternal corrections when needed. When she said this, I was a little taken aback, not to mention a little disappointed, mostly because those are the kinds of friendships I strive to have. I don't want to have just a bunch of acquaintances who don't really know me. I want to have the kind of virtuous friendships she described. I want friends who will challenge me to become the best version of myself. I want friends who actually want to know how I'm doing when they ask. So that week, while we were still in Orlando, I started thinking of ways to make that happen, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. Here's what I've been coming up with...

1. Instead of focusing on my lack of friendships at home, I've been concentrating on solidifying the friendships I developed last year. This has been an extremely fruitful exercise. I'm sure part of it has to do with the fact that I'm working now so I don't have as much time to obsess over all the things I'm missing out on by not being around my friends, but I've definitely seen a big difference simply due to the fact that I'm focusing on the positive instead of the negative. Plus, this new outlook has given me the opportunity to get to know my friends better, and it's been so good getting to that next level. I'm hoping to continue the trend with a few more friends each month. It'll definitely be easier with some than others, but I think I'm up for the challenge ;)

2. I've realized, with the help of a wonderful friend (who might be started a blog soon!! eeeeee!!), that I need to consider what wounds from past friendships might be holding me back from becoming better friends with the current people in my life. And not only do I need to recognize them, but I need to be willing to bring them up with the other person so that she can understand where I'm coming from. I hadn't really thought about it before this weekend, but I've actually done that with those few people who I'd consider my closest friends. And now that I know that's what I did, I can continue to do it when I feel like the time is right. Praise God for intuitive friends who are willing to listen to me go on and on about things I've been thinking about!

3. I'm reading A Simple Path by Bl. Mother Teresa, and in the introduction, someone described how people used to feel when she was talking to them. It was something along the lines of Mother Teresa gave her full and undivided attention to the person she was with and made them feel like the most important person in her life. In an effort to emulate her, I decided that anytime I'm talking to someone, I would silence my phone so that I wouldn't be tempted to answer a call or text while we were in the middle of a discussion. Because honestly, there aren't many more annoying things than trying to have a serious conversation with a friend who insists on responding to a text message in the middle of your story. Sure they claim to be listening to you, but we all know we can't listen to someone and type out a message at the same time--neither activity is receiving our full attention so we only end up hearing half of what our friend is saying to us and we end up sending a message that makes no sense. As a result of this newly implemented plan, people have been forced to call the person I'm with to get ahold of me. Hahaha that may or may not defeat the purpose of my exercise...

Well, that's probably enough for now. There's an episode of Parenthood calling my name and I still have to pack my lunch for work tomorrow. Why yes, I have regressed into the 8-year-old version of myself now that I'm working. Hahaha I go to bed at embarrassingly early hours, pick out my clothes the night before, and pack my lunch before going to bed. All normal things, right?

Life Update

Sooooo.....I don't know if you guys remember me or not, but my name is Jordan and a loooooong time ago, I used to be the author of this blog. Then absolutely nothing happened and I didn't post for over than a month. I hope you'll all accept my apologies and welcome me back without any hard feelings. Hahaha and what better way to do that than with a numbered list? ;)

What I've been up to since I last posted:

1. Well, I spent 6 days in Florida at an amazing conference, which you can read about here. In a word it was exactlywhatIneededittobeandmore. (If you say it in one breath, you can pretend it's one word). As you ladies (and whatever men happen to stumble upon this blog...) know, I was having a bit of a rough time last semester. And yes, it's still acceptable to divide your life into semesters even after you've graduated, thank you very much. Anyway, life = not as great as I wanted it to be pre-conference. Then I was surrounded by 6200+ of my closest friends, priests, religious, and missionaries for about a week! Honestly, I don't even know how to describe it, so I'll just focus on the best part for me--the conversations I had. Obviously, the speakers they brought in were phenomenal and I learned so much from them (more on that in a future post perhaps), but I had been yearning for good conversation so much, and I definitely got it. I caught up with friends I hadn't seen in months and others who I'd seen more recently but hadn't had any good heart-to-hearts with. Going into the conference, I prayed that God would bring me genuine joy again, and He went above and beyond that (what a guy ;) ). Soooo yeah. It was amazing. And exactly what I needed before I started my internship.

2. Speaking of internships, I started mine the day after we got back from Seek. Originally I was supposed to start the day we returned, but thankfully, my boss was okay with moving it forward a day! After a 20+ hour bus ride, I definitely needed a day to relax before getting into the swing of things. Anywaaay, I was pretty nervous about this internship. I really didn't have any idea what I would be doing since I've never taken any tax classes or even filed my own taxes. Me and uncertainty don't really mix that well...so I didn't have that great of an attitude about it either. Luckily, it's turned out to be a pretty good experience so far--the people I work with are really nice and very willing to help me out. Plus, they know that I don't have any experience so they're explaining things slowly and not overwhelming me with work (which is both a blessing and a curse since I spend a lot of time just sitting around waiting for them to give me another task...). But! so far, so good. We'll see how crazy it gets once the government finally passes all the tax laws and we can start actually filing this year's returns!

3. I got to spend Friday night celebrating a good friend's birthday and see this girl! After a couple weeks of not seeing my friends, it was great to have an opportunity to spend a good chunk of time with them. Plus we watched Perfect Pitch, which I was a little unsure about but the music was AMAZING!! and it wasn't as inappropriate as I thought it was going to be. Bonus.

4. Then on Saturday, my family celebrated what we like to call Second Christmas. Real original, I know. Since we can't all get together on actual Christmas, we've set up a date in January the past few years so that we can exchange gifts, play games (think Minute to Win It), and enjoy each other's company (sometimes that one is a little questionable. haha). I got all 3 seasons of Parenthood so you better believe that's what I'll be doing this weekend! Plus!!! My grandma got me the 4-volume Liturgy of the Hours set, which I've fallen in love with already. Seems like I should have more to say about this, but how much do I really need to explain opening presents? Haha.

5. Now that I've started my internship and my friend has started student teaching, we've decided to start spiritual bootcamp. Sounds intimidating. Basically we're going to spend the semester (or however long it takes) reading the Diary of St. Faustina. We haven't exactly hashed out all the plans, but I'm really excited to start because I feel like I'll get a lot more out of it (and actually DO the reading) if I've got an accountability partner. I'll keep you posted on how it goes :)

Well, I think that's about it on the updates. I plan on spending my lunch breaks catching up on all the posts I've missed of yours! I hope you all had wonderful Christmas seasons and are surviving this single digit weather (which I am NOT fond of...).

I'll leave you with one of the quotes that stuck out to me at Seek. It's a prayer from St. Anselm:

O my God teach my heart where and how to seek you,
where and how to find you…

You are my God and you are my All and I have never seen you.
You have made me and remade me,
You have bestowed on me all the good things I possess,
Still I do not know you…

I have not yet done that for which I was made….
Teach me to seek you…

I cannot seek you unless you teach me
or find you unless you show yourself to me.
Let me seek you in my desire, let me desire you in my seeking.
Let me find you by loving you, let me love you when I find you.

Patron saint of the year

We're five hours into our 22 hour drive. So far we've made one stop for dinner (aka a strawberry smoothie and a bagel), prayed a bus rosary, and met our fellow riders via "speed dating." But then we did something cool! A Christmas bag was passed around with a bunch of saint names in it and we were all asked to pick one to be our patron saint for the year. I ended up with Saint Margaret of Scotland, who I actually don't know anything about. So now I get to spend the year learning about a wonderful woman and asking her to pray for me.

Oh! And we also got an intention to pray for on our sheets. Mine is for big families. Not quite sure what that has to do with me but I'm excited to discover it this year :)

By the way, we'll be spending a lot of time in adoration this week so please let me know if you have anything you need extra prayers for. Know that I'm keeping you all in my prayers for things you've expressed in the past. I hope to keep you updated on all the amazing things that are sure to happen!

Quick Takes (10)

After being absent from the quick takes scene for a couple weeks, I figured it was high time to re-join Jen and crew for a few updates!

1. Yesterday was my birthday! As a kid, the only reason I liked having my birthday that close to Christmas was because I could ask for presents that I didn’t get two days earlier. It’s a little different now that I’m older and don’t want toys anymore. Haha. I ended up spending the majority of the day with a friend who didn’t even know it was my birthday. Hahaha apparently he forgot to check Facebook ;)

2. As I was opening my sister’s gift to me on Christmas, she says, “I don’t even know if this is something you’d want or like.” Well that’s a promising intro to a present…She got me The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. We’re both huge Harry Potter fans, but I actually hadn’t even looked into her new book. Anyone have any opinion on it? Is it worth the read?

3. Since I didn’t do a quick takes last week, I forgot to write about cookie day. Every year around Christmas, my family gets together and spends all day baking cookies. Literally all day. My mom started at 5 or 6 in the morning (I didn’t get there until about 7:30) and we mixed, rolled out, dropped, and baked cookies until 7 or 8 at night. I don’t even know how many we ended up making. Dozens upon dozens upon dozens. A few lucky friends got some in the mail and my fellow daily mass goers gobbled up quite a few as well :) Anyone else have any Christmas traditions?

4. Over the summer, I borrowed a couple seasons of ER from my grandma. I had watched some of the later seasons when they were still new and had seen most of them in rerun form, but I was running out of things to do so I started from season 1 and worked my way through them. Now I’m on 11 or 12. Gotta love old medical dramas.

5. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas filled with peace, joy, love, and good times with family!

6. In honor of the Holy Feast of the Innocents, I wanted to share this: "Today, dearest brethren, we celebrate the birthday of those children who were slaughtered, as the Gospel tells us, by that exceedingly cruel king, Herod. Let the earth, therefore, rejoice and the Church exult — she, the fruitful mother of so many heavenly champions and of such glorious virtues. Never, in fact, would that impious tyrant have been able to benefit these children by the sweetest kindness as much as he has done by his hatred. For as today's feast reveals, in the measure with which malice in all its fury was poured out upon the holy children, did heaven's blessing stream down upon them."

7. And I’ll leave you with this quote from John Paul II: “People are made for happiness. Rightly, then, you thirst for happiness. Christ has the answer to this desire of yours. But he asks you to trust him. True joy is a victory, something which cannot be obtained without a long and difficult struggle. Christ holds the secret of this victory.”

Jody's birthday

As I'm sure none of you know, today is my birthday! Hahah now you know ;)

Anywaaaaaay, I started off the day by going to mass. I usually stay afterward to have coffee/tea and cookies with the other dailies, but I had to get home so I could catch a train into the city for a birthday lunch! So as I was getting ready to leave, the priest and another older gentleman decided to sing to me. Hahaha and it was hilarious. First of all, my poor priest LOVES to sing but he can't carry a tune. At all. So he just sort of made up his own melody. But it gets better. When they got to the part "happy birthday dear (insert birthday boy or girl's name here), the Father Richard just sort of mumbled through that part and the other man inserted the name Jody. It took everything I had not to start cracking up!

Hopefully all of your days have started off that joyfully!! :)

Spiritually Thirsty Thursday

I'm not exactly sure when the tradition started since I was only involved in our Newman Center for a year, but every Thursday night, there would be mass at 9 followed by fellowship and food. And as you've surely guessed, it was called spiritually thirsty Thursday. I figured it could be a fun thing to incorporate into my blog (minus the Mass...and the food....) Hahaha we'll see how it goes.

This quote seemed pretty fitting since Christmas is only 5 days away!!!

"I am the Mother of adoration and reparation. Beside every tabernacle of the earth there is always my motherly presence. It forms a new and loving tabernacle for the solitary presence of my Son Jesus; it builds a garden of love for his permanent residence among you; it forms a celestial harmony which surrounds Him with all the enchantment of paradise in the adoring choirs of angels, in the blessed prayer of the saints, in the painful aspiration of the many souls who are being purified in purgatory. In my Immaculate Heart all form a concert of perennial adoration, of unceasing prayer and of profound love for Jesus, really present in every tabernacle on earth.

Today my motherly heart is saddened and is deeply wounded because I see that, about the divine presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, there is so much emptiness, so much abandonment, so much neglect, so much silence.

O Church, pilgrim and suffering, of which I am the Mother, Church who are the family of all my children, ark of the new alliance, people of God, you must understand that the center of your life, the font of your grace, the source of your light, the beginning of your apostolic action is found only here in the tabernacle where Jesus is truly kept. And Jesus is present to teach you how to grow, to help you walk, to strengthen you in giving witness, to give you courage in evangelizing, to be a support for all your sufferings." 

Words of Our Lady, August 21 1987

I pray Jesus continues to bless us with all of these gifts, but also that we remember to ask for them and recognize that we need them. He wants to give us all of this and more. What are we willing to give to Him? 

Toys from the 90s :)

Making up for my lack of posts last week with three in a row this week. You're welcome. ;)

As I was wasting hours of my life perusing Facebook last night, I found this gem on a friend's wall. Obviously I went through and reminisced about all the toys I used to have. Between my sister and me, we had #s 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 15, 18, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 35, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 47, and 50.

1. Those roller skates were not a great investment for us because we lived on a tar-and-chip road and the little plastic wheels couldn't handle all the gravel. Therefore, my sister and I did more walking tripping than skating.

2. Moon shoes were THE BEST! Until we got to big and broke the elastic with our jumps...whoops.

6. Did anyone ever win this game?

7. Somehow we didn't get tired of hearing the same song. Over and over and over and over again.

9. I'm pretty sure we spent hours recording "secret" messages on these little guys and then turning the dial so we sounded like robots or Alvin and his chipmunk brothers. I'm not sure what ended up happening to them. If I had to guess, I'd say my mom hid them from us.

12.  I used to have a Reptar-mobile that had coloring books and crayons and other crafty stuff inside.

13. I'm pretty sure we had every Disney version of these. Almost as much fun as watching the actual movie. Almost...

15. We both had gold ones that we used to race from the top of the hill on our street (or our neighbor's driveway).

18. We used to cheat at Bop-It by having one of us man the bop-it and pull-it, while the other one had the twist it. This was actually a horrible idea because we ended up blaming each other every time we lost!

21. The little boy I babysat last year had one of those echo mics. I hid it from him every chance I got...hahaha. Why are children's toys so annoying??

22. Tamagotchis were banned from my grade school because kids spent too much time taking care of their strange creatures and all the beeping drove the teachers crazy. Obviously I couldn't just let mine die, so I did the logical thing and made my mom take it to work with her and care for it.

24. The lazy man's form of catch.

26. Looooooved my LiteBrite.

27. My sister begged my mom for this art kit. I think she used it twice. Story of kids' gifts...

28. Who thought this was a good idea...?

30. PlayDoh that you were supposed to let dry out basically, but mom would never let us cover any of our stuff with it like the commercials suggested.

31. I have no recollection of this story but my mom swears it's true: One time, a friend came over to our house and wanted to play with my Sky Dancers. So we took them outside and everything was fine and dandy until she got one of them stuck on the roof. Apparently I acted like it was the end of the world and refused to let her play with any of the others. And of course we don't have a ladder at my house, so for all I know, that little fairy is still up there!

32. Yeah we definitely never built anything this cool. We were lucky if we could find enough pieces to make a snowflake.

35. Our aim was so bad that no one ever got "soaked." We chalked it up as a success if a couple dribbles hit our intended target.

39. Did anyone else have the 96 pack of crayons??

40. We.were.OBSESSED.with.pokemon. We had the Game*Boy games, the cheat books for the games, and the cards. We would bring them to school to trade with our friends. I'm pretty sure we knew the names of all the original 150. I even had Charizard at one point.

41. They do have a very distinctive smell. Why is that?

42. Hahaha I took this to a slumber party one time and we spent the whole night taking and decorating pictures of each other. The paper turned into stickers--what more could you ask for??

43. The cure for our roadtrip boredom.

45. I always assumed ours was broken because it never seemed to register as many skips as I believed I accomplished. Clearly faulty technology.

47. I spent hours moving my Polly Pockets from the first floor to the second floor.

50. Instead of getting an allowance, we used to get a Beanie Baby every week. Of course we thought they'd be worth millions one day. Now they just sit in a tote in our garage collecting dust...apparently we should have sold them as soon as we bought them. So much for our get-rich-quick scheme.

Hopefully you had as much fun as I did thinking about the toys we used to play with!